August 14, 2025 • 38 mins
Chuck Zodda and Mike Armstrong discuss jobless claims edging lower last week and wholesale prices surged. Is the data starting to show the impacts from tariffs? Blue states hunt for ways to wring more taxes from the wealthy. Big Pharma has a vision for selling drugs and it involves mattresses. Google faces loss of Chrome as Perplexity bid adds drama to looming break up decision.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:42):
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(01:06):
and Mike Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Chuck, Mike and not Tucker with you. And as we
kick things off today, top story is going to be
the economic data that we received this morning. Let's start
with the good side of things. Weekly jobless claims continue
to be in a pretty darn comfortable area, coming in
at two hundred and twenty four thousand for the week.
That is down slightly from two hundred and twenty seven
(01:32):
thousand last week. When we look at the continuing claims
numbers came in also at a decline from last week,
going from one point nine to six eight million to
one point nine to five to three. That is a
five point four percent increase year over year, which is
right in the range that we've been in for the
last several weeks, so that the trend continues to be
(01:55):
a modest uptick in continuing claims relative to last year.
But generally, if you've seen claims moving up, you know,
at a four to six percent range annually. Historically, that
has not been enough to cause any kind of major
problem as it relates to unemployment or a reduction in
consumer spending. The place where you tend to get into
(02:17):
trouble is when you get closer to a ten percent
rise in continuing claims year over year. There were some
signs that we might have been heading there in late
May early June that is subsequently reversed, and this report
continues to paint a picture of a labor market that,
while there may be some concerns on the hiring side
of things, we still don't really have any uptick in
(02:41):
new claims and that's helping to keep somewhat of a
lid on continuing claims.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, so it continues this story of kind of a
stale and stuck labor market where there's not a ton
of turnover. And I think that leads into something that
we were talking about the last couple of days, which
is the wage side of things. There's been a fair
bit of focus over the last week of that wage
growth that was occurring for the last few years on
(03:08):
the lower income spectrum ticking up right. You had wage
growth for the bottom quartile outperforming the top quartile of
earners for a few years.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
And what most.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
People will tell you is, if you're talking about really
strong wage growth, it doesn't come from getting a raise
in your current job, comes from going to a new job.
It comes from switching and we're not seeing any switching
right now, which I think is probably what's contributing most
to the stagnant wage gains that we're seeing, especially for
those lower income individuals. And so if there's a stagnant
(03:40):
labor market, it means not a lot of turnover, not
a lot of churn, not a terrible thing from employers,
but for employees, it means stagnant wages that you know,
if we're pushing three percent inflation, might have a challenge
keeping pace. Yeah, the catchy way that I've heard this
job market referred to, what word did we come up with?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Okay, a word, it's a phrase. I'm going to make
it into a word. Then it's the slow higher no
fire job market, the slow higher no fire or the
job market. So it's kind of if you ask an
HR manager how they're doing, they go, I've had Yeah,
(04:19):
you know, that's that's that's what we're seeing right now.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
It's a slow higher no.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Fire job market is generally the tenor of things at
the moment. So all in all, not a bad weekly
jobless claims number here, right, And look, we had the
the bad jobs print at the beginning of this month,
which really continues to be suggestive of a labor market
(04:43):
that is not seeing much hiring, because there's not really
much on the firing side that's contributing to this, and
I think that ultimately it's something where there's still concerns
about the labor market, because hey, if hiring is slowing
the way that a lot of the other indicators are pointing,
it's kind of problematic. But we're still not seeing anything
(05:06):
suggestive of a major uptick in unemployment or a major
uptick in firings, and I think that can be interpreted
as only good news when it comes to the labor
market on that side, at least when you look at
some of the other data that is out there, other
promising signs that you might be seeing in the labor
(05:28):
market that maybe you're starting to turn a corner and
maybe see some improvement. Job postings on indeed are now
up half a percent week over week. There's still down
six point seven percent year over year, but you've got
a little bit of an uptick here. We've seen some
of these previously that ultimately have not altered the overall trend,
(05:49):
but at least you're seeing a little bit more in
terms of job postings, whether that turns into actual hiring.
We don't know, but if you're looking for green shoots,
that's the place that you can see it. On the
other side of things, if you're looking at wages, the
annual percentage change in advertised wages on indeed, and this
is not data that's as close or as recent month
(06:12):
over month down point one percent for the month of June,
we still don't have the July data there and year
over year down point two percent, So it is something
where again, the newer data that we've gotten on job
postings is suggesting a little bit of an uptick there,
and so I think the big thing that I'll be
interested to see do we see a similar move on wages,
(06:35):
But it's going to be a couple months until we
get that data, just because Indeed does not release it
right away. If you're looking for other confirmation and other
thoughts on this, Paychecks puts out a small business jobs
index as well.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Likewise, May and June both.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Had declines, but when you and the twelve month number
is a decline of point zero five percent as well,
So a very modest decline in jobs at small businesses
in the last twelve months. But the July number was
up point one seven percent, So again kind of a
modest uptick. There is this an outlier, or maybe are
things starting to strengthen in the labor market.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Could be again that.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
The job was claims picture has improved at the same
time that some of this other data is And so
I think maybe there's a case that there could be
an interesting case that the data in April, May and
June hey really weakenedo the labor market because companies weren't
sure exactly how they wanted to proceed, And maybe some
of the data that we're seeing now is okay. Now
(07:36):
that companies have digested and understood what their business look
like looks like, maybe they're starting to get a little
bit more comfortable in hiring.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
But it's a pretty plausible narrative. Like, you know, I
was faced with all these surprise tariffs in April, so
I paused all my hiring for or three months. I'm
finally at a place now where like it or dislike it.
I know what the tariffs are, I've been paying them
for a few months, and I can figure out my
(08:04):
business model. I've got a new tax bill that's in
place now, so I know my tax rates. I know
there's some special deductions for research and development now, and
so I can move forward with maybe completely changed hiring plans,
but hiring plans that we're just put on ice for
three months.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
So possible, maybe not. Maybe it's what we're seeing again.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
This is you know, one month or in some cases
you know, single weeks of data, and so I think
we have to see how things develop over the course
of the August September and even into the early October data.
So it's the listen, the third quarter is going to
be media in terms of, hey, show us how this
stuff is actually playing out here and thus far. When
(08:45):
it comes to the labor data, yes, the monthly jobs
report not good by any means, but some of the
other stuff, the underlying stuff in surrounding data sets, is
starting to show some signs of life for the first
time in six to nine months, and so maybe there's
a little bit of movement on that side of things.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
When we come back, we'll talk about the other data
set that we got this morning, the Producer Price Index
unfortunately not quite as good, but we got to talk
about it, so we'll do that when we return.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Tara Fleebury's in high gear. We've got the latest on
what might be next and how long it might last.
Only here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Text us
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Speaker 5 (09:42):
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(10:04):
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Speaker 4 (10:12):
So this morning.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The other data set that we received was the Producer
Price Index, or the PPI as it is more commonly
referred to. It's actually not that commonly referred to because,
for being one hundred percent honest, no one really understands
the PPI very well and it's not as interesting as
(10:34):
the CPI, and so it kind of gets paid attention to,
but no one really cares unless something interesting happens in it.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So survey of businesses rather than well, it's still a
survey that's done on prices, but it's specifically what are
those prices that are being charged to businesses rather than
the prices that are being charged to consumers.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Kind of right, because here's the other thing about the
producer price index, every other price index, every other major
price index that we look at, and I'm telling you
this information so you can understand what it's actually saying
and why it may or may not matter. Every other
price index that we look at or care about is
measured from the perspective of the buyer. The consumer price
(11:15):
index is what did people pay for X during this month?
How much did you pay for airfare? How much did
you pay for bananas? How much did you pay for shelter.
That's what is being asked. Instead, the PPI is backwards.
(11:35):
It is focusing on prices received by a seller rather
than prices paid by a buyer. And so you have
to kind of sit back and be like, WHOA, the
universe is different from how I thought it was, man,
Because that's what the PPI forces you to do. It
turns you into a surfer bro. And so ultimately, the
(12:00):
way to think about this is, hey, when I am
what I am looking at here is a measure of
what wholesalers are receiving for intermediate goods paid by final
retailers who are then selling out into.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Restaurants, hotels, airlines. I have an example.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Let's just look at an example, because it's again even
like saying this, it's like, Chuck, what the heck are
you talking about? You're an idiot? Just like makes some sense,
I get it, I understand. Let's say that you look
at the PPI for cereal, just as an example. What
you are actually measuring there is the price received by
Kellogg's or General Mills from whole foods or stop and
(12:48):
shop or publics in order to buy their goods. Sure,
so that is what the PPI is measuring, and I
think that that's like, that's the easy way to understand it.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And so logically, if we're taking this survey for what
it is, one would anticipate that if those prices that
suppliers are receiving are going up and doing so in
dramatic fashion, that eventually it bleeds through to the consumer
price index, the personal consumption expenditures, all these different ways
(13:21):
that we have of measuring what you and I pay
for when we buy the cereal from the whole foods.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
There are two ways that you can look at. The
first is it's either going to bleed through. The second
is that it could be absorbed as margin compression. Either
one is, you know, has its own problems that we've discussed.
So this is all a fancy way of saying PPI.
This month, both headline and core moved up at a
rate ofero point nine percent, which pushed headline PPI to
(13:49):
three point three percent annually and Core PPI to three
point seven Both of these were much hotter than expectations
for point two percent prints on each of them. The
interesting thing here to me is when you actually dig
in and look under the surface, a lot of the
extra increase in the PPI was due to items in
(14:10):
the financial services sector.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
You're welcome basically some of the things that stick out.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Investment advice saw prices up three point three percent month
over month, insurance up five point seven percent, portfolio management
up five point four So this stuff, the portfolio management piece.
Why this all matters is some of the PPI stuff
does filter into PCE and core PCE, which is why
people pay attention to it, And so with portfolio management
(14:41):
being one of the things that does factor into PCE,
it does put some upward pressure on PCE estimates. The
ones that I've seen now are suggesting it's most likely
somewhere in the point three to point four percent for
core PCE, which would be an acceleration in a hotter
number than you'd.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Like to see.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
But so as you it's also it's also not something
that is going to be replicated month over month. Those
costs are not going to move up in that fashion
each month in those categories. So here here's kind of
the weird place that I've landed on. This is despite
this probably pushing up PCE and core PCE for the
(15:21):
month of July, I'm not really sure there's that much
meat on this bone when it comes to this PPI report.
So it's kind of, Hey, headline report is hot, but
the underlying causes doesn't really look that bad quite honestly,
which this strange thing is CPI on Wednesday. Hey, the
(15:45):
headline number looked okay, but the underlying looked kind of gross.
And yet markets rallied one percent on that It's kind
of funny that this is the opposite where, hey, the
headline looks gross, but I'm not sure this report is
actually that bad when you dig into the details, and
markets are, you know, having not not a sell off,
but markets are down very, very modestly in response. So
(16:08):
I just find that kind of interesting because if there's
one of these two reports that I would have been
more concerned about, it was actually the CPI from a
couple of days ago. This one, even with the really
hot headline number, I kind of look at it under
the surface and go, eh, I'm not really sure there's
that much there that's that's gonna be a long term
sticking problem. But we'll have to see how future ones
(16:29):
develop on this.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
The I guess interesting thing to me is that it
continues the narrative and continues the trend that we've seen,
which is we're not really getting inflation from goods.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
No, And this is the problematic piece if you want
to look at like that CPI report, which is okay,
inflation is starting to broaden from goods and showing up
in some other places, and if it ever does hit,
you know, more heavily in goods that you've got a
problem there.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
So I think I think that given.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
All of this, because the only reason why you know
this specific printer, that specific print matters right now is
because of what the Fed is going to do.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Like no one, no one can reliably.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Measure their own inflation month to month, you know, like
you don't go and buy a new insurance policy for
your house every month. You don't go buy a new
car every month. It doesn't really matter what inflation does
month over month. We experience it over you know, six
months or a year, over longer time periods. But why
this matters is because of what the Fed may or
(17:33):
may not do. What this certainly does. There was chatter
yesterday of you know, oh hey, maybe the Fed's gonna
go half a percent in September. Let's pump the brakes
on that, you know, like I think that that that
this kind of says that if the market was cool
doing a quarter percent after Tuesday CPI report, it's still
gonna be cool with doing a quarter percent after this one.
(17:55):
The interesting thing to me is if the jobless claims
numbers continue to be good, and let's say we get
a bounce back jobs report in early September.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
That's what I asked the other day on Tuesday, I
think I asked Marth this, like, how low does unemployment
have to go for the FED to have to the
FED to not cut.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Like, let's just play out a hypothetical here.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Let's say that the next jobs report is one hundred
and seventy thousand jobs created and upward revisions of eighty
thousand to the previous two months, so net gain of
like two hundred and fifty thousand relative to where we
thought we were. The FED cutting into that with inflation,
with core inflation north of three percent.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I think they might. I don't know that they should.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I think they might too, but like at that point
you'd kind of look at it and go, gee, I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I think what's more important is what the unemployment rate
does then it is.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And look, given the trends that we've seen on the
unemployment rate, like there's a convincing case that unemployment in
that scenario could drop from four to one to four.
How do you cut when unemployment is flat or falling
and core PC is rising?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah, I would I don't know the answer to it,
but I would love to see the debate that heats
up in there because you've had a few governors who
are saying, nope, we're on board with the cut, and
they're also running for that next candidate. If you get
that type of print, you just have no, you don't
have much ground to stand up.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Wouldn't the wild thing be? And again, I have no
idea what's gonna happen. Wouldn't the wild thing be if
they end up doing nothing? But they have descents to
both the hawkish and Ovis side. Yeah, I don't know
when the lie, don't know if that's happened.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Let's take a quick break here. When we come back,
we got Wall Street Watch.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at
TFE show. Breaking business news is always first right here
on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Time now for Wall
Street Watch a complete look at what's moving markets so
far today, right here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Now.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Markets are mixed.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Right now at ten thirty four, the Dow Jones is
down ninety seven points, or just over two tents of percent.
SMP five hundred is just barely down one point five
to four points or point zero two percent. The Nasdaq,
on the other hand, is up seventeen and a half
points er point zero eight percent as traders continue to
digest this morning's PPI data and the jobless claims data.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Coach New York.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
And Kate Spade parent Tapestry is down fifteen percent after
its full year outlook missed analyst estimates. Tapestry forecast full
year earnings of five dollars and thirty cents two five
dollars and forty five cents per share, while analysts polled
we're looking for five dollars and forty nine cents. Farm
equipment maker Deer is down seven percent after Deer trim
(20:48):
the top end of its full year outlook. The Moleen,
Illinois based manufacturer forecast net income of four point seventy
five billion to five point twenty five billion, versus a
previous forecast of four point seventy five billion two five
point five billion. Bullish shares are up twenty two percent.
The stock soared more than eighty three percent yesterday, its
(21:09):
first day as a public company. And finally, Kratos Defense
and Security Solutions Shared shares are up three point seven
percent after BTIG upgraded the defense stock to buy on Thursday.
Analysts said the company could be a key beneficiary of
wider defense budgets. I am ben Kitchen and that was
Wall Street Watch.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Peace in the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Blues states hunt for ways to bring more taxes from
the wealthy, including a Taylor's Swift.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Tax that is gonna be so popular. I kind of
love the idea of just naming unpopular things after popular celebrities.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So like, okay, what what's a Beyonce tax gonna be in?
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Hey? This one? Hey, we're gonna do a fred of
Stare tax, you know, like if you.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Can, we do it after dead, dead famous people. Sure
why they can't object the Robin Williams tax. Here we go,
you know, just beloved, beloved. Example, here's the Charlet Maine tax.
You know, like, so let's talk about what's happening here.
Massachusetts implemented a few years ago the millionaire's tax, the.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Napoleon tax paid by short people to long to tall people.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Do you like that one? So the Masschusets Millionaire's tax
went into effect. What was that twenty three to twenty four?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Twenty twenty two was when it was approved. Twenty three
was the first year of collection. Yeah, and you know,
estimates were for that to raise.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
At least initial projections that I'm seeing were that it
would generate about a billion dollars annually. In twenty twenty four,
the thing generated two point two. We've talked about on
this program in the most recent year, now, the twenty
twenty five year, reaching towards three. Right, he got two
point nine versus estimates of one point three billion. Right. So,
I think a lot of states are a you know,
kind of salivating over what's happened in Massachusetts, be losing
(23:05):
out on some federal revenue from things like Medicaid cuts,
and wondering what to do about it all. You know,
We've talked about the Massachusetts case, and I'm sure we'll
get back to it. The point that I made at
the time is, look, you can get to any other
state within forty five minutes. This is not something that
will be terribly successful over the long term, but in
(23:27):
the short term, yeah, I mean, you're not about to
tear your business out of the state of Massachusetts overnight
and try and relocate it elsewhere. And so yeah, I
think that this has been, in the eyes of lawmakers,
in fact, considerably more successful than initially anticipated, and other
states are looking longingly I think so. I think the.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Other piece on this that is that we're just gonna need, unfortunately,
like five or so years of information in order to
make judgments on you mentioned, Okay, someone might not you know,
uproot their lives or business right away, but maybe over
longer time spans they do.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
That's one possibility.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Another possibility is, hey, there were a bunch of people
that took off from the Northeast and headed to Florida
and Texas and you know, parts unknown back in twenty
twenty one and twenty two. We've started to see, you know,
just from a housing data perspective, signs that that migration
has abated and may in some cases be reversing on
(24:27):
the margins as well. And so I guess part of
my question is also, you know, a lot of these
other states that saw these big influxes of people were
hailed as being you know, hugely successful during that time.
Given what we're seeing now, I think we just need
more time to see if that was a short term
trend or something that's you know, longer term. And so
(24:49):
I guess where I'm going on this is.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
We need more.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Time because just because things haven't happened yet, don't mean
that they're not going to in the future.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
The case in point is look at Florida, just as
an example, in twenty to one and twenty two, when
we saw all of the migration data with you know,
Florida and Texas being huge net beneficiaries, everyone was saying, oh,
this is the model, this is what you have to
do now, and today it doesn't quite feel that way
with what we're seeing as far as housing inventories in Florida,
cost of insurance and property taxes and things like that
(25:24):
that have moved up, right, We're not really seeing the
same thing now. So I think it's easy in the
case of Massachusetts to take a victory lap here and say, hey,
it's been two years and this is doing so much,
you know, creating so much additional revenue for the state
beyond what we thought.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Of course, this is the model, this is what all.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
States should be doing. But how do we know that
this isn't going to be a short term thing just
like we saw from those other states, and two years
from now it's oh, gee, the millionaire's actually moved and
maybe this isn't now. I'm not saying that will or won't.
I'm just saying to definitive say hey, after you know
a year or two, well this works, we should do
(26:03):
It isn't really enough time. I know in today's world,
like a year or two can feel like forever because
with social media, that's like seven thousand news cycles that
you go through, Right, But a year or two is
a really short period of time to say that a
public policy works or doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, I remember this is going back a number of years,
and I don't remember specifically what New Jersey did, but
I remember a number of years ago New Jersey implemented
a new tax one taxpayer moved out of the state,
and it resulted in like a giant hole in their
overall budget. And so yeah, it can take a little
while for these things to play out. And I just
(26:44):
keep going back. Right, if you're in Massachusetts earning ten
million dollars a year, which I know is not a
lot of people, but clearly it's enough people to raise
a lot of revenue for the commonwealth, the math really
starts to work against you when you consider that versus
New Hampshire. Just like you know, you're talking about a
(27:05):
lot of money when you're talking about those two and
you know at those net words. You don't care quite
as much about the public school system, you don't care
quite as much about the services that you might get
because you're not utilizing many of them. When you're talking
about ten million dollars a year in income.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Sure I could see that.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
So we will see. I mean, across the country they're
talking about all sorts of different things, Connecticuts floating a
new tax on those earning more than half a million dollars.
Maryland is considering something new, Rhode Island with their Taylor
Swift taxes, talking about you know, expensive vacation properties that
might be taxed. There's there's a lot of different questions
that are out there, but I think the trend in
(27:46):
the short term is going to be in those blue states.
At least, Hey, we're missing out on federal funding. Where
can we raise taxes? And the trend at least recently
has been go after the wealthiest residents.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Take a quick break here when we return Big Pharma
and Mattresses, the mashup you never.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Knew you wanted. Right after this, Mike.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I've been told that we need to continue talking about
Big Pharma and the mattresses.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, we're having some computer problems.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
So the AI is fighting back.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
We're not actually talking about selling the two together, I
don't think. But the business model of mattresses, the big
farmers want to go and mimic it.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So here's the point that's being made here is mattress
companies in recent years have taken to selling direct to consumer.
A whole bunch of different brands out there that advertise
now and you get a mattress ship to you, and
you get a thirty day free trial and hey, if
you can get it back in that box, you can
return it, no problems, no questions asked.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Used to buy it at Sears. Now you buy it
directly from Purple or Yeah, there's a bunch of them
out there.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Purple Avocado was one for a little bit. I don't
know how they name these things, but you know, it
is what it is. And big farmers talking about doing
this as a way to get costs down. And I
got a lot of questions. I've got some questions too
on this because here's the thing about buying a mattress
(29:22):
is you buy a mattress and you like you don't
have to ask permission to buy the mattress or anything
where it's typically like you need a prescription and a
whole processing you know, center and grant that you can
set these up. Like there are plenty of companies that
have you know, done that. The big one that's out
there right now is Hymns and Hers Health.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
But you know, I mean the details of that. I
want to say. The way it works is you get
a medical consultation from Hymns and HER's Health, who prescribes
medicine to you.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
You're correct, Which is different from setting up a system
to receive prescriptions from a vast network of doctors nationwide.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Right, And I mean just think about a massive conflict
of interest there. Right, I work as an employee for
a company who makes money selling drugs, and my job
is to determine whether or not you are going to
benefit from those drugs.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, and beyond that, there's also some questions just about
basically what they're actually selling is compounded versions of other
drugs in most cases, and so how long does the
FDA or even in some case you could look at
like the FTC from a patent infringement perspective, allow for
that to happen.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
And there are some questions there.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
But I mean different for Eli Lilly, Right, they own
these drugs. They could do this too, but man, I
just wouldn't trust them too well.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And here's the other piece is and I'll quote here
from is this barons.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I think so, Eli, Lilly and.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Novo Nordisk are already selling their obesity injections straight to
consumers at prices well below list price, though still above
what inshored patients would pay at the pharmacy counter. Right,
So what's the incentive for me to do that? Kind
of tough. Obviously, it could potentially bring the overall costs
down the cost structure in the US, but it doesn't
(31:13):
change the fact that you personally are paying more. So
it's kind of like, why would I do that?
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I guess if I don't want to have health insurance anymore,
which seems like a pretty narrow which if I'm on
obese drugs, I would think I would want toeah, But
that's just me. Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
When we come back, we're talking Google and Chrome after
this mis.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
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Speaker 2 (32:09):
Piece in CMBC talking about Google and its Chrome browser
and basically, look, Google has been going through a couple
of different anti trust trials. That one of them, I'm
trying to remember when it finished.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
It was earlier this year, late last year.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
But basically they're awaiting a judge's decision in one of
the trials as to whether they have to start divesting
portions of the company. And you know, clearly the stuff
that's being you know that everyone wants to speculate on
is are they going to have to you know, sell
off YouTube or are they going to have to you know,
split their search and ad business.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
And meanwhile, Perplexity, who is.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
An artificial intelligence company with revenues in the millions, might
I add not billions? Perplexity come along earlier this week
and decides, ye, shooter's gonna shoot and makes a thirty
four and a half billion dollar bid that, by the way,
they do have lines of credit and stuff that could
you know, get there, and you know, some equity financing
that they could figure out in theory.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
So Perplexity just for those listening AI AI generation company
similar to the likes of GPT.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah kind of.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I mean there's so it's it's more a they've really
built it to try to be a search engine specifically,
and so it's it's really focused on trying to replace
search more than you know, conversational chatbots and things along
those lines.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
So one could see how owning the most popular browser
in the world would be beneficial to them.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Sure obviously, Like you think about the amount of information
and data that you could gather from that browser and
use and you say, okay, like I get this, and
you know, Perplexity is just trying to be opportunistic. I
don't think Google's going to take them up on this
just because.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
No, but it's evidence that the judge might now need
to consider, like one of these things worth on their own.
Is it reasonable to cause a breakup? I don't know,
I'm I'm not a judge. I've never presided of or anything.
But this is, you know, a private company putting a
price tag on one of the things you might force
them to sell.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
And the big thing is Chrome is just a huge
if you will get browser market share and kind of
where things stand right now, and this is according to
data from cloud Flare, who's a big back end provider
for basically like DNS systems and internet services for companies,
(34:50):
if you will get browsershare right now, Chrome is far
and away in q one the largest browser in the country.
It's got sixty three percent of the browser market, next
to Safari at seventeen. So while you Apple fans out there,
that's you, Microsoft Edge is a distant third at seven
percent and.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Can't get anyone to use their breast.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
And then who's using Firefox still about four percent of users.
There's something called Samsung Internet that gets two percent of users.
And then you've got people that are still on Opera
for some reason, and then you just get into stuff
that I've never heard of. Quite honestly, I don't know
what the Yandex browser is. I don't know what the
QQ browser is, the Vivo browser, UC browser, ME browser,
(35:35):
something that's just called whale is out there, you know,
And so yeah, getting Chrome would.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Obviously be a big coup, But.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I don't even know if this is a viable bit
just from a dollar value perspective given how much market
share it has.
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Speaker 2 (36:45):
Mike, it looks like, according to this piece from the
Financial Times, Italy is going through the same thing that
the US has gone through recently. Which here's the headline,
how dogs replace children in Italy? You got grand dogs
that are being born in Italy too, not just in
the US.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
All right, So I don't have any problem with pet ownership.
I own two pets myself. I just that's what I want.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Came down and saw you picking up all their droppings.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
They would think I'm pretty strange.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Yeah, who's really in charge here?
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney's government has begun allocating two hundred
and fifty thousand euro a year for an animal bonus
to help elderly pet owners with limited incomes cover some
of their veterinary expenses.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
What why would we do that? Italy?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
You have a massive demographics problem of people not having
enough kids, and instead of allocating resources to figuring out
that one, you're giving money to people to make sure
they can afford to keep their pets up to date
on their shots.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Gonna be honest, I'm kind of okay with it.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Fine, spend your money how you want.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
It's clear that like trying to incentives childbirth through.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
It.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Don't have a dog, man, bet man's best friend.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Get a cat if you want it to, No problem,
quick break here, I were two coming up in a
bit
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(01:06):
and Mike Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Chuck, Mike and not Tucker with you. And as we
kick things off today, top story is going to be
the economic data that we received this morning. Let's start
with the good side of things. Weekly jobless claims continue
to be in a pretty darn comfortable area, coming in
at two hundred and twenty four thousand for the week.
That is down slightly from two hundred and twenty seven
(01:32):
thousand last week. When we look at the continuing claims
numbers came in also at a decline from last week,
going from one point nine to six eight million to
one point nine to five to three. That is a
five point four percent increase year over year, which is
right in the range that we've been in for the
last several weeks, so that the trend continues to be
(01:55):
a modest uptick in continuing claims relative to last year.
But generally, if you've seen claims moving up, you know,
at a four to six percent range annually. Historically, that
has not been enough to cause any kind of major
problem as it relates to unemployment or a reduction in
consumer spending. The place where you tend to get into
(02:17):
trouble is when you get closer to a ten percent
rise in continuing claims year over year. There were some
signs that we might have been heading there in late
May early June that is subsequently reversed, and this report
continues to paint a picture of a labor market that,
while there may be some concerns on the hiring side
of things, we still don't really have any uptick in
(02:41):
new claims and that's helping to keep somewhat of a
lid on continuing claims.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, so it continues this story of kind of a
stale and stuck labor market where there's not a ton
of turnover. And I think that leads into something that
we were talking about the last couple of days, which
is the wage side of things. There's been a fair
bit of focus over the last week of that wage
growth that was occurring for the last few years on
(03:08):
the lower income spectrum ticking up right. You had wage
growth for the bottom quartile outperforming the top quartile of
earners for a few years.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
And what most.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
People will tell you is, if you're talking about really
strong wage growth, it doesn't come from getting a raise
in your current job, comes from going to a new job.
It comes from switching and we're not seeing any switching
right now, which I think is probably what's contributing most
to the stagnant wage gains that we're seeing, especially for
those lower income individuals. And so if there's a stagnant
(03:40):
labor market, it means not a lot of turnover, not
a lot of churn, not a terrible thing from employers,
but for employees, it means stagnant wages that you know,
if we're pushing three percent inflation, might have a challenge
keeping pace. Yeah, the catchy way that I've heard this
job market referred to, what word did we come up with?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Okay, a word, it's a phrase. I'm going to make
it into a word. Then it's the slow higher no
fire job market, the slow higher no fire or the
job market. So it's kind of if you ask an
HR manager how they're doing, they go, I've had Yeah,
(04:19):
you know, that's that's that's what we're seeing right now.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
It's a slow higher no.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Fire job market is generally the tenor of things at
the moment. So all in all, not a bad weekly
jobless claims number here, right, And look, we had the
the bad jobs print at the beginning of this month,
which really continues to be suggestive of a labor market
(04:43):
that is not seeing much hiring, because there's not really
much on the firing side that's contributing to this, and
I think that ultimately it's something where there's still concerns
about the labor market, because hey, if hiring is slowing
the way that a lot of the other indicators are pointing,
it's kind of problematic. But we're still not seeing anything
(05:06):
suggestive of a major uptick in unemployment or a major
uptick in firings, and I think that can be interpreted
as only good news when it comes to the labor
market on that side, at least when you look at
some of the other data that is out there, other
promising signs that you might be seeing in the labor
(05:28):
market that maybe you're starting to turn a corner and
maybe see some improvement. Job postings on indeed are now
up half a percent week over week. There's still down
six point seven percent year over year, but you've got
a little bit of an uptick here. We've seen some
of these previously that ultimately have not altered the overall trend,
(05:49):
but at least you're seeing a little bit more in
terms of job postings, whether that turns into actual hiring.
We don't know, but if you're looking for green shoots,
that's the place that you can see it. On the
other side of things, if you're looking at wages, the
annual percentage change in advertised wages on indeed, and this
is not data that's as close or as recent month
(06:12):
over month down point one percent for the month of June,
we still don't have the July data there and year
over year down point two percent, So it is something
where again, the newer data that we've gotten on job
postings is suggesting a little bit of an uptick there,
and so I think the big thing that I'll be
interested to see do we see a similar move on wages,
(06:35):
But it's going to be a couple months until we
get that data, just because Indeed does not release it
right away. If you're looking for other confirmation and other
thoughts on this, Paychecks puts out a small business jobs
index as well.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Likewise, May and June both.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Had declines, but when you and the twelve month number
is a decline of point zero five percent as well,
So a very modest decline in jobs at small businesses
in the last twelve months. But the July number was
up point one seven percent, So again kind of a
modest uptick. There is this an outlier, or maybe are
things starting to strengthen in the labor market.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Could be again that.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
The job was claims picture has improved at the same
time that some of this other data is And so
I think maybe there's a case that there could be
an interesting case that the data in April, May and
June hey really weakenedo the labor market because companies weren't
sure exactly how they wanted to proceed, And maybe some
of the data that we're seeing now is okay. Now
(07:36):
that companies have digested and understood what their business look
like looks like, maybe they're starting to get a little
bit more comfortable in hiring.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
But it's a pretty plausible narrative. Like, you know, I
was faced with all these surprise tariffs in April, so
I paused all my hiring for or three months. I'm
finally at a place now where like it or dislike it.
I know what the tariffs are, I've been paying them
for a few months, and I can figure out my
(08:04):
business model. I've got a new tax bill that's in
place now, so I know my tax rates. I know
there's some special deductions for research and development now, and
so I can move forward with maybe completely changed hiring plans,
but hiring plans that we're just put on ice for
three months.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
So possible, maybe not. Maybe it's what we're seeing again.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
This is you know, one month or in some cases
you know, single weeks of data, and so I think
we have to see how things develop over the course
of the August September and even into the early October data.
So it's the listen, the third quarter is going to
be media in terms of, hey, show us how this
stuff is actually playing out here and thus far. When
(08:45):
it comes to the labor data, yes, the monthly jobs
report not good by any means, but some of the
other stuff, the underlying stuff in surrounding data sets, is
starting to show some signs of life for the first
time in six to nine months, and so maybe there's
a little bit of movement on that side of things.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
When we come back, we'll talk about the other data
set that we got this morning, the Producer Price Index
unfortunately not quite as good, but we got to talk
about it, so we'll do that when we return.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
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Speaker 4 (10:12):
So this morning.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The other data set that we received was the Producer
Price Index, or the PPI as it is more commonly
referred to. It's actually not that commonly referred to because,
for being one hundred percent honest, no one really understands
the PPI very well and it's not as interesting as
(10:34):
the CPI, and so it kind of gets paid attention to,
but no one really cares unless something interesting happens in it.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So survey of businesses rather than well, it's still a
survey that's done on prices, but it's specifically what are
those prices that are being charged to businesses rather than
the prices that are being charged to consumers.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Kind of right, because here's the other thing about the
producer price index, every other price index, every other major
price index that we look at, and I'm telling you
this information so you can understand what it's actually saying
and why it may or may not matter. Every other
price index that we look at or care about is
measured from the perspective of the buyer. The consumer price
(11:15):
index is what did people pay for X during this month?
How much did you pay for airfare? How much did
you pay for bananas? How much did you pay for shelter.
That's what is being asked. Instead, the PPI is backwards.
(11:35):
It is focusing on prices received by a seller rather
than prices paid by a buyer. And so you have
to kind of sit back and be like, WHOA, the
universe is different from how I thought it was, man,
Because that's what the PPI forces you to do. It
turns you into a surfer bro. And so ultimately, the
(12:00):
way to think about this is, hey, when I am
what I am looking at here is a measure of
what wholesalers are receiving for intermediate goods paid by final
retailers who are then selling out into.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Restaurants, hotels, airlines. I have an example.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Let's just look at an example, because it's again even
like saying this, it's like, Chuck, what the heck are
you talking about? You're an idiot? Just like makes some sense,
I get it, I understand. Let's say that you look
at the PPI for cereal, just as an example. What
you are actually measuring there is the price received by
Kellogg's or General Mills from whole foods or stop and
(12:48):
shop or publics in order to buy their goods. Sure,
so that is what the PPI is measuring, and I
think that that's like, that's the easy way to understand it.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And so logically, if we're taking this survey for what
it is, one would anticipate that if those prices that
suppliers are receiving are going up and doing so in
dramatic fashion, that eventually it bleeds through to the consumer
price index, the personal consumption expenditures, all these different ways
(13:21):
that we have of measuring what you and I pay
for when we buy the cereal from the whole foods.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
There are two ways that you can look at. The
first is it's either going to bleed through. The second
is that it could be absorbed as margin compression. Either
one is, you know, has its own problems that we've discussed.
So this is all a fancy way of saying PPI.
This month, both headline and core moved up at a
rate ofero point nine percent, which pushed headline PPI to
(13:49):
three point three percent annually and Core PPI to three
point seven Both of these were much hotter than expectations
for point two percent prints on each of them. The
interesting thing here to me is when you actually dig
in and look under the surface, a lot of the
extra increase in the PPI was due to items in
(14:10):
the financial services sector.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
You're welcome basically some of the things that stick out.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Investment advice saw prices up three point three percent month
over month, insurance up five point seven percent, portfolio management
up five point four So this stuff, the portfolio management piece.
Why this all matters is some of the PPI stuff
does filter into PCE and core PCE, which is why
people pay attention to it, And so with portfolio management
(14:41):
being one of the things that does factor into PCE,
it does put some upward pressure on PCE estimates. The
ones that I've seen now are suggesting it's most likely
somewhere in the point three to point four percent for
core PCE, which would be an acceleration in a hotter
number than you'd.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Like to see.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
But so as you it's also it's also not something
that is going to be replicated month over month. Those
costs are not going to move up in that fashion
each month in those categories. So here here's kind of
the weird place that I've landed on. This is despite
this probably pushing up PCE and core PCE for the
(15:21):
month of July, I'm not really sure there's that much
meat on this bone when it comes to this PPI report.
So it's kind of, Hey, headline report is hot, but
the underlying causes doesn't really look that bad quite honestly,
which this strange thing is CPI on Wednesday. Hey, the
(15:45):
headline number looked okay, but the underlying looked kind of gross.
And yet markets rallied one percent on that It's kind
of funny that this is the opposite where, hey, the
headline looks gross, but I'm not sure this report is
actually that bad when you dig into the details, and
markets are, you know, having not not a sell off,
but markets are down very, very modestly in response. So
(16:08):
I just find that kind of interesting because if there's
one of these two reports that I would have been
more concerned about, it was actually the CPI from a
couple of days ago. This one, even with the really
hot headline number, I kind of look at it under
the surface and go, eh, I'm not really sure there's
that much there that's that's gonna be a long term
sticking problem. But we'll have to see how future ones
(16:29):
develop on this.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
The I guess interesting thing to me is that it
continues the narrative and continues the trend that we've seen,
which is we're not really getting inflation from goods.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
No, And this is the problematic piece if you want
to look at like that CPI report, which is okay,
inflation is starting to broaden from goods and showing up
in some other places, and if it ever does hit,
you know, more heavily in goods that you've got a
problem there.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
So I think I think that given.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
All of this, because the only reason why you know
this specific printer, that specific print matters right now is
because of what the Fed is going to do.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Like no one, no one can reliably.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Measure their own inflation month to month, you know, like
you don't go and buy a new insurance policy for
your house every month. You don't go buy a new
car every month. It doesn't really matter what inflation does
month over month. We experience it over you know, six
months or a year, over longer time periods. But why
this matters is because of what the Fed may or
(17:33):
may not do. What this certainly does. There was chatter
yesterday of you know, oh hey, maybe the Fed's gonna
go half a percent in September. Let's pump the brakes
on that, you know, like I think that that that
this kind of says that if the market was cool
doing a quarter percent after Tuesday CPI report, it's still
gonna be cool with doing a quarter percent after this one.
(17:55):
The interesting thing to me is if the jobless claims
numbers continue to be good, and let's say we get
a bounce back jobs report in early September.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
That's what I asked the other day on Tuesday, I
think I asked Marth this, like, how low does unemployment
have to go for the FED to have to the
FED to not cut.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Like, let's just play out a hypothetical here.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Let's say that the next jobs report is one hundred
and seventy thousand jobs created and upward revisions of eighty
thousand to the previous two months, so net gain of
like two hundred and fifty thousand relative to where we
thought we were. The FED cutting into that with inflation,
with core inflation north of three percent.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I think they might. I don't know that they should.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I think they might too, but like at that point
you'd kind of look at it and go, gee, I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I think what's more important is what the unemployment rate
does then it is.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And look, given the trends that we've seen on the
unemployment rate, like there's a convincing case that unemployment in
that scenario could drop from four to one to four.
How do you cut when unemployment is flat or falling
and core PC is rising?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah, I would I don't know the answer to it,
but I would love to see the debate that heats
up in there because you've had a few governors who
are saying, nope, we're on board with the cut, and
they're also running for that next candidate. If you get
that type of print, you just have no, you don't
have much ground to stand up.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Wouldn't the wild thing be? And again, I have no
idea what's gonna happen. Wouldn't the wild thing be if
they end up doing nothing? But they have descents to
both the hawkish and Ovis side. Yeah, I don't know
when the lie, don't know if that's happened.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Let's take a quick break here. When we come back,
we got Wall Street Watch.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at
TFE show. Breaking business news is always first right here
on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Time now for Wall
Street Watch a complete look at what's moving markets so
far today, right here on the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Now.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Markets are mixed.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Right now at ten thirty four, the Dow Jones is
down ninety seven points, or just over two tents of percent.
SMP five hundred is just barely down one point five
to four points or point zero two percent. The Nasdaq,
on the other hand, is up seventeen and a half
points er point zero eight percent as traders continue to
digest this morning's PPI data and the jobless claims data.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Coach New York.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
And Kate Spade parent Tapestry is down fifteen percent after
its full year outlook missed analyst estimates. Tapestry forecast full
year earnings of five dollars and thirty cents two five
dollars and forty five cents per share, while analysts polled
we're looking for five dollars and forty nine cents. Farm
equipment maker Deer is down seven percent after Deer trim
(20:48):
the top end of its full year outlook. The Moleen,
Illinois based manufacturer forecast net income of four point seventy
five billion to five point twenty five billion, versus a
previous forecast of four point seventy five billion two five
point five billion. Bullish shares are up twenty two percent.
The stock soared more than eighty three percent yesterday, its
(21:09):
first day as a public company. And finally, Kratos Defense
and Security Solutions Shared shares are up three point seven
percent after BTIG upgraded the defense stock to buy on Thursday.
Analysts said the company could be a key beneficiary of
wider defense budgets. I am ben Kitchen and that was
Wall Street Watch.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Peace in the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Blues states hunt for ways to bring more taxes from
the wealthy, including a Taylor's Swift.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Tax that is gonna be so popular. I kind of
love the idea of just naming unpopular things after popular celebrities.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So like, okay, what what's a Beyonce tax gonna be in?
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Hey? This one? Hey, we're gonna do a fred of
Stare tax, you know, like if you.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Can, we do it after dead, dead famous people. Sure
why they can't object the Robin Williams tax. Here we go,
you know, just beloved, beloved. Example, here's the Charlet Maine tax.
You know, like, so let's talk about what's happening here.
Massachusetts implemented a few years ago the millionaire's tax, the.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Napoleon tax paid by short people to long to tall people.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Do you like that one? So the Masschusets Millionaire's tax
went into effect. What was that twenty three to twenty four?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Twenty twenty two was when it was approved. Twenty three
was the first year of collection. Yeah, and you know,
estimates were for that to raise.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
At least initial projections that I'm seeing were that it
would generate about a billion dollars annually. In twenty twenty four,
the thing generated two point two. We've talked about on
this program in the most recent year, now, the twenty
twenty five year, reaching towards three. Right, he got two
point nine versus estimates of one point three billion. Right. So,
I think a lot of states are a you know,
kind of salivating over what's happened in Massachusetts, be losing
(23:05):
out on some federal revenue from things like Medicaid cuts,
and wondering what to do about it all. You know,
We've talked about the Massachusetts case, and I'm sure we'll
get back to it. The point that I made at
the time is, look, you can get to any other
state within forty five minutes. This is not something that
will be terribly successful over the long term, but in
(23:27):
the short term, yeah, I mean, you're not about to
tear your business out of the state of Massachusetts overnight
and try and relocate it elsewhere. And so yeah, I
think that this has been, in the eyes of lawmakers,
in fact, considerably more successful than initially anticipated, and other
states are looking longingly I think so. I think the.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Other piece on this that is that we're just gonna need, unfortunately,
like five or so years of information in order to
make judgments on you mentioned, Okay, someone might not you know,
uproot their lives or business right away, but maybe over
longer time spans they do.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
That's one possibility.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Another possibility is, hey, there were a bunch of people
that took off from the Northeast and headed to Florida
and Texas and you know, parts unknown back in twenty
twenty one and twenty two. We've started to see, you know,
just from a housing data perspective, signs that that migration
has abated and may in some cases be reversing on
(24:27):
the margins as well. And so I guess part of
my question is also, you know, a lot of these
other states that saw these big influxes of people were
hailed as being you know, hugely successful during that time.
Given what we're seeing now, I think we just need
more time to see if that was a short term
trend or something that's you know, longer term. And so
(24:49):
I guess where I'm going on this is.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
We need more.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Time because just because things haven't happened yet, don't mean
that they're not going to in the future.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
The case in point is look at Florida, just as
an example, in twenty to one and twenty two, when
we saw all of the migration data with you know,
Florida and Texas being huge net beneficiaries, everyone was saying, oh,
this is the model, this is what you have to
do now, and today it doesn't quite feel that way
with what we're seeing as far as housing inventories in Florida,
cost of insurance and property taxes and things like that
(25:24):
that have moved up, right, We're not really seeing the
same thing now. So I think it's easy in the
case of Massachusetts to take a victory lap here and say, hey,
it's been two years and this is doing so much,
you know, creating so much additional revenue for the state
beyond what we thought.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Of course, this is the model, this is what all.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
States should be doing. But how do we know that
this isn't going to be a short term thing just
like we saw from those other states, and two years
from now it's oh, gee, the millionaire's actually moved and
maybe this isn't now. I'm not saying that will or won't.
I'm just saying to definitive say hey, after you know
a year or two, well this works, we should do
(26:03):
It isn't really enough time. I know in today's world,
like a year or two can feel like forever because
with social media, that's like seven thousand news cycles that
you go through, Right, But a year or two is
a really short period of time to say that a
public policy works or doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, I remember this is going back a number of years,
and I don't remember specifically what New Jersey did, but
I remember a number of years ago New Jersey implemented
a new tax one taxpayer moved out of the state,
and it resulted in like a giant hole in their
overall budget. And so yeah, it can take a little
while for these things to play out. And I just
(26:44):
keep going back. Right, if you're in Massachusetts earning ten
million dollars a year, which I know is not a
lot of people, but clearly it's enough people to raise
a lot of revenue for the commonwealth, the math really
starts to work against you when you consider that versus
New Hampshire. Just like you know, you're talking about a
(27:05):
lot of money when you're talking about those two and
you know at those net words. You don't care quite
as much about the public school system, you don't care
quite as much about the services that you might get
because you're not utilizing many of them. When you're talking
about ten million dollars a year in income.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Sure I could see that.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
So we will see. I mean, across the country they're
talking about all sorts of different things, Connecticuts floating a
new tax on those earning more than half a million dollars.
Maryland is considering something new, Rhode Island with their Taylor
Swift taxes, talking about you know, expensive vacation properties that
might be taxed. There's there's a lot of different questions
that are out there, but I think the trend in
(27:46):
the short term is going to be in those blue states.
At least, Hey, we're missing out on federal funding. Where
can we raise taxes? And the trend at least recently
has been go after the wealthiest residents.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Take a quick break here when we return Big Pharma
and Mattresses, the mashup you never.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Knew you wanted. Right after this, Mike.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I've been told that we need to continue talking about
Big Pharma and the mattresses.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, we're having some computer problems.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
So the AI is fighting back.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
We're not actually talking about selling the two together, I
don't think. But the business model of mattresses, the big
farmers want to go and mimic it.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So here's the point that's being made here is mattress
companies in recent years have taken to selling direct to consumer.
A whole bunch of different brands out there that advertise
now and you get a mattress ship to you, and
you get a thirty day free trial and hey, if
you can get it back in that box, you can
return it, no problems, no questions asked.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Used to buy it at Sears. Now you buy it
directly from Purple or Yeah, there's a bunch of them
out there.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Purple Avocado was one for a little bit. I don't
know how they name these things, but you know, it
is what it is. And big farmers talking about doing
this as a way to get costs down. And I
got a lot of questions. I've got some questions too
on this because here's the thing about buying a mattress
(29:22):
is you buy a mattress and you like you don't
have to ask permission to buy the mattress or anything
where it's typically like you need a prescription and a
whole processing you know, center and grant that you can
set these up. Like there are plenty of companies that
have you know, done that. The big one that's out
there right now is Hymns and Hers Health.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
But you know, I mean the details of that. I
want to say. The way it works is you get
a medical consultation from Hymns and HER's Health, who prescribes
medicine to you.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
You're correct, Which is different from setting up a system
to receive prescriptions from a vast network of doctors nationwide.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Right, And I mean just think about a massive conflict
of interest there. Right, I work as an employee for
a company who makes money selling drugs, and my job
is to determine whether or not you are going to
benefit from those drugs.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, and beyond that, there's also some questions just about
basically what they're actually selling is compounded versions of other
drugs in most cases, and so how long does the
FDA or even in some case you could look at
like the FTC from a patent infringement perspective, allow for
that to happen.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
And there are some questions there.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
But I mean different for Eli Lilly, Right, they own
these drugs. They could do this too, but man, I
just wouldn't trust them too well.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And here's the other piece is and I'll quote here
from is this barons.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I think so, Eli, Lilly and.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Novo Nordisk are already selling their obesity injections straight to
consumers at prices well below list price, though still above
what inshored patients would pay at the pharmacy counter. Right,
So what's the incentive for me to do that? Kind
of tough. Obviously, it could potentially bring the overall costs
down the cost structure in the US, but it doesn't
(31:13):
change the fact that you personally are paying more. So
it's kind of like, why would I do that?
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I guess if I don't want to have health insurance anymore,
which seems like a pretty narrow which if I'm on
obese drugs, I would think I would want toeah, But
that's just me. Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
When we come back, we're talking Google and Chrome after
this mis.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Any of the show. The Financial Exchange Show podcast is
available on Apple, Spotify, and iHeartRadio. Hit the subscribe button
and leave us a five star review. This is the
Financial Exchange Radio network. This is your home for the
most comprehensive coverage of the economy and the trends on
Wall Street. This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Piece in CMBC talking about Google and its Chrome browser
and basically, look, Google has been going through a couple
of different anti trust trials. That one of them, I'm
trying to remember when it finished.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
It was earlier this year, late last year.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
But basically they're awaiting a judge's decision in one of
the trials as to whether they have to start divesting
portions of the company. And you know, clearly the stuff
that's being you know that everyone wants to speculate on
is are they going to have to you know, sell
off YouTube or are they going to have to you know,
split their search and ad business.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
And meanwhile, Perplexity, who is.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
An artificial intelligence company with revenues in the millions, might
I add not billions? Perplexity come along earlier this week
and decides, ye, shooter's gonna shoot and makes a thirty
four and a half billion dollar bid that, by the way,
they do have lines of credit and stuff that could
you know, get there, and you know, some equity financing
that they could figure out in theory.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
So Perplexity just for those listening AI AI generation company
similar to the likes of GPT.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah kind of.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I mean there's so it's it's more a they've really
built it to try to be a search engine specifically,
and so it's it's really focused on trying to replace
search more than you know, conversational chatbots and things along
those lines.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
So one could see how owning the most popular browser
in the world would be beneficial to them.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Sure obviously, Like you think about the amount of information
and data that you could gather from that browser and
use and you say, okay, like I get this, and
you know, Perplexity is just trying to be opportunistic. I
don't think Google's going to take them up on this
just because.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
No, but it's evidence that the judge might now need
to consider, like one of these things worth on their own.
Is it reasonable to cause a breakup? I don't know,
I'm I'm not a judge. I've never presided of or anything.
But this is, you know, a private company putting a
price tag on one of the things you might force
them to sell.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
And the big thing is Chrome is just a huge
if you will get browser market share and kind of
where things stand right now, and this is according to
data from cloud Flare, who's a big back end provider
for basically like DNS systems and internet services for companies,
(34:50):
if you will get browsershare right now, Chrome is far
and away in q one the largest browser in the country.
It's got sixty three percent of the browser market, next
to Safari at seventeen. So while you Apple fans out there,
that's you, Microsoft Edge is a distant third at seven
percent and.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Can't get anyone to use their breast.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
And then who's using Firefox still about four percent of users.
There's something called Samsung Internet that gets two percent of users.
And then you've got people that are still on Opera
for some reason, and then you just get into stuff
that I've never heard of. Quite honestly, I don't know
what the Yandex browser is. I don't know what the
QQ browser is, the Vivo browser, UC browser, ME browser,
(35:35):
something that's just called whale is out there, you know,
And so yeah, getting Chrome would.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Obviously be a big coup, But.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I don't even know if this is a viable bit
just from a dollar value perspective given how much market
share it has.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
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Speaker 2 (36:45):
Mike, it looks like, according to this piece from the
Financial Times, Italy is going through the same thing that
the US has gone through recently. Which here's the headline,
how dogs replace children in Italy? You got grand dogs
that are being born in Italy too, not just in
the US.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
All right, So I don't have any problem with pet ownership.
I own two pets myself. I just that's what I want.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Came down and saw you picking up all their droppings.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
They would think I'm pretty strange.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Yeah, who's really in charge here?
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney's government has begun allocating two hundred
and fifty thousand euro a year for an animal bonus
to help elderly pet owners with limited incomes cover some
of their veterinary expenses.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
What why would we do that? Italy?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
You have a massive demographics problem of people not having
enough kids, and instead of allocating resources to figuring out
that one, you're giving money to people to make sure
they can afford to keep their pets up to date
on their shots.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Gonna be honest, I'm kind of okay with it.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Fine, spend your money how you want.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
It's clear that like trying to incentives childbirth through.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
It.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Don't have a dog, man, bet man's best friend.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Get a cat if you want it to, No problem,
quick break here, I were two coming up in a
bit
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